Burnley College receives £10,000 as part of BPEC Charity award

Life Award 2012

Burnley College has been awarded £10,000 in recognition of an innovative project that used plumbing skills to enhance life.

The BPEC Charity has announced the college as the winner of the Conditional Award in its first ever Life Awards ceremony.

The college was presented with the award for a project to take apprentice plumbers to Uganda to work alongside a village community to build wells to provide safe, clean drinking water. Plumbing tutor Stephen Dobney hopes to work with the Drop in a Bucket charity to get the project off the ground and is embarking on a fundraising bid involving the college and local community.

“Our goal is to decrease the number of children needlessly dying of malaria brought on by drinking contaminated water,” said Stephen. “Using the skills students have developed in theory and practical lessons, we want to work alongside the community and help build wells that will provide the safe, clean drinking water that these people so desperately need. It will make a massive difference to the way the villagers live, and ultimately save their lives.”

The BPEC Charity award is conditional on the team raising the rest of the money needed to carry out the project and on taking four apprentices.

It was one of four awards totalling almost £30,000 presented by the BPEC Charity – the charitable arm of BPEC, which is the leading training and certification provider to the building services engineering sector.

They were announced at an awards ceremony attended by 100 representatives of the plumbing industry at Pride Park Stadium, Derby, on October 24^th 2012. The awards, in memory of BPEC’s founding chairman Raymond J Brooks, were presented by the Master of the Worshipful Company of Plumbers Charles Yuill.

Other awards were handed to NG Bailey Engineering Academy, Leeds, for the design of a project that will deliver a safe water system to a health clinic in Cobue, Mozambique; Martin Biron and his associates from the College of North West London for the creation of a virtual plumbing college online to support plumbing students, teachers and the wider general public in understanding the key principles and processes of the plumbing industry; and plumber John Booth, from Fareham, Hampshire, for his involvement in the Peace & Hope Trust’s charity work in Nicaragua.

BPEC chairman Frank Glover said: “BPEC is delighted to have presented four separate awards at our inaugural BPEC Charity Life Awards event. Each of the award winning entries has shown how plumbing can make a difference to life, and we congratulate Burnley College for being amongst this year’s winners.”

Now the search has started for applicants for next year’s BPEC Charity Life Awards, with organisers urging those who work in the plumbing sector to put themselves forward.

“There are so many ways in which plumbing skills can enhance life,” said Frank Glover. “It may be through product invention, an innovative product or service, a charitable plumbing activity or project, raising the image of plumbing or a change in perspective. We hope that this year’s winners will provide inspiration to others who could be award winners in 2013.”

BPEC, which was established in 1992, is the leading provider of training and certification for the building services engineering sector, which covers the gas, oil, plumbing, electrotechnical, heating, ventilating, air conditioning and refrigeration industries.

The organisation’s training materials range from technical training packs for domestic gas safety and water regulations to a selection of renewable energies manuals such as solar thermal hot water and heat pumps.

BPEC is dedicated to education and lifelong learning, and seeks to encourage individuals to undertake further training to continuously update their skills, both for personal development and to keep abreast of the industry’s technological advances.

Its charitable arm – The BPEC Charity – launched the Life Award in 2012 to reward and support those in the UK plumbing industry who use plumbing skills to enhance life.

To find out more about entering next year’s Life Awards visit https://bpec.org.uk/the-bpec-charity/